Entrepreneur Roy Solomon is currently busy overseeing the building of a unique center in Albuquerque NM, which will be build entirely out of shipping containers. The center will be located at a busy location near I-40 and Carlisle Boulevard. It is called Green Jeans and it will house shops, offices and restaurants.

About 75 miles north of Houston, TX, a large shipping container apartment unit is currently under construction. The complex is called Cube Square and is located within walking distance of Sam Houston State University. The apartment units were created with student housing in mind, but they will be available to anyone who wishes to rent one.

Shipping containers might be a great way to build affordable homes fast and cheaply, but one of the problems is spreading awareness that such an affordable solution exists. To solve this, a team of University of Florida (UF) students is building a simple shipping container home in a month long campaign called “Imagine … a Place called Home,” which they hope will bring greater awareness to this architectural solution. They have the home on display at the Reitz Union North Lawn at UF where they invite people inside to learn more about this type of architecture.

While shipping containers make excellent building blocks for permanent homes, they also make for great, inexpensive retreats. Below you will find a list of shipping container retreats across the globe, some of which you can even rent out to experience shipping container living on your own. The latter is a great idea, if you’re considering building your home using a shipping container, just to see if living inside one is something you would even like.

The Faith Action for Community Equity (FACE) has turned a shipping container into a home for a family of five. The shipping container is located in Honolulu, Hawaii and cost about $11,000 to construct.

Bill Hebner, a former youth pastor from Kelowna, Canada has been building affordable housing for the less fortunate since the 1990s. The first homes he built were made of wood, but more recently, he started using recycled shipping containers as the primary building blocs. Availability, sturdiness, and ease of constructions are the main reasons for this choice.